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structural form peculiar to any language; the genius or cast of a language. Idiom may be employed loosely and figuratively as a synonym of language or dialect, but in its proper sense it signifies the totality of the general rules of construction which characterize the syntax of a particular language and distinguish i…

Not called into active service; not turned to appropriate use; unemployed; as, idle hours. The idle spear and shield were high uphing. Milton.

g the parts of different ones together, so as to form new wholes of our creation. I shall employ the word imagination to express this power. Stewart.

Pertaining to, or employed in, imitation; as, imitational propensities.

ellectual notion we are at once encountered by the imparity of the object and the faculty employed upon it. I. Taylor.

(Law) The right to command, which includes the right to employ the force of the state to enforce the laws. It is one of the principal attributes of the executive power.

impervious parts of bodies. Sir I. Newton. But, in the present order of things, not to be employed without impinging on God's justice. Bp. Warburton.

ere a mulicious act is proved, a mulicious intention is implied. Bp. Sherlock. When a man employs a laborer to work for him, . . . the act of hiring implies an obligation and a promise that he shall pay him a reasonable reward for his services. Blackstone.

Not practicable; incapable of being performed, or accomplished by the means employed, or at command; impossible; as, an impracticable undertaking.

sed. Why such impress of shipwrights Shak. Impress gang, a party of men, with an officer, employed to impress seamen for ships of war; a press gang. -- Impress money, a sum of money paid, immediately upon their entering service, to men who have been impressed.

To use or employ to good purpose; to make productive; to turn to profitable account; to utilize; as, to improve one's time; to improve his means. Shak. We shall especially honor God by improving diligently the talents which God hath committed to us. Barrow. A hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved…

act of making profitable use or applicaton of anything, or the state of being profitably employed; a turning to good account; practical application, as of a doctrine, principle, or theory, stated in a discourse. "A good improvement of his reason." S. Clarke. I shall make some improvement of this doctrine. Tillotson.…

Doubtful; not of definite form. Opus incertum (Anc. Arch.), a kind of masonry employed in building walls, in which the stones were not squared nor laid in courses; rubblework.

indolence is thus a state in which we have no grief or pain; so that the word, as we now employ it, seems to affirm that indulgence in sloth and ease is that which would constitute for us the absence of all pain. Trench.

al induction, under Induction. -- Inductive sciences, those sciences which admit of, and employ, the inductive method, as astronomy, botany, chemistry, etc.

industry; pertaining to industry, or the arts and products of industry; concerning those employed in labor, especially in manual labor, and their wages, duties, and rights. The great ideas of industrial development and economic social amelioration. M. Arnold.

Habitual diligence in any employment or pursuit, either bodily or mental; steady attention to business; assiduity; -- opposed to sloth and idleness; as, industry pays debts, while idleness or despair will increase them. We are more industrious than our forefathers, because in the present times the funds destined for th…

To bring forward, or employ as an argument; to adduce; to allege; to offer. [Obs.] Full well hath Clifford played the orator, Inferring arguments of mighty force. Shak.

uld only initiate mankind into the useful knowledge of her treasures, leaving the rest to employ our industry. Dr. H. More. To initiate his pupil into any part of learning, an ordinary skill in the governor is enough. Locke.

An averment employed in pleading, to point the application of matter otherwise unintelligible; an interpretative parenthesis thrown into quoted matter to explain an obscure word or words; -- as, the plaintiff avers that the defendant said that he (innuendo the plaintiff) was a thief. Wharton.